Lady of Two Lands
by Elivra26
Summary: She is Queen Nefertiti of Egypt. She is Neffy of London. She is the Lady of Two Lands, and she reminisces. That's basically it, really. Rated T for swear words and implied stuff. Striving to be canon but between the Whoniverse and ancient Egypt, that would be overreaching.


**Hello all! This was the brainwave of a delirious, feverish mind, literally! While I originally intended this as a new chapter in my Monologues series, it quickly became too long and too fleshed-out to be added there. So, yeah, I haven't completely abandoned Monologues, never fear, I have a couple of half-written chapters that will eventually make it online.**

**The plight of the many characters we meet in Doctor Who after their onscreen appearance fascinates me to no end, especially the really famous and historically important ones because oh my God how much did the Doctor influence Earth history and culture? This one is particularly bitter-sweet because that's how it always is with the Doctor's 'friends'. Not always a happily-ever-after(almost never, actually) but happy in its own sad way.**

**All my knowledge about ancient Egypt comes from Wikipedia and two or three other websites on the internet. If I've made an error somewhere(as I probably have) please PM me and I will gladly correct it! What I have understood and referenced, I have explained at the end of the story.**

**As always, hope you guys like it, and please review!**

_**Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC. Not me. Never. Nope.**_

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**Lady of Two Lands**

Sunset. She had seen so many sunsets of so many different lands in her time, and yet she loved every single sunset she witnessed. It was the beauty, of course, but deep down, it was also devotion, a faith she kept so close to her heart that no amount of external change could eradicate it. He was Aten, He was light, joy, creation and the True God, and He was beautiful. She was the Lady of All Women, the Queen of Two Lands, and she was His Most Beautiful One –but now, she was His lone worshipper, the last of her kind.

Her husband –the first one –had been the one to propagate His name, His religion. It hadn't been enough, she knew that now. Even now she remembered with stark clarity all the plans they had made, all the strategies of ways and means to help the people transition their faith. Hysterical laughter rose in her sometimes when she thus reminisced –they had been young fools, and it had not been worth it. Not two generations later the religion was scrapped, their beautiful monuments and buildings torn down. It had been all for naught.

That had been what had driven her to drink the first time 'round. But then John had been with her, comforting and understanding in his own bluff, rough way. He had helped her through her depression, but he hadn't been there for long after that. It was mostly her fault, but she did not regret doing what she did. She would not.

She and John had been deliriously happy in the desert in his tent. For nearly a year they had remained content and unconcerned with the rest of the world, but then the world got smaller, more dangerous. John was summoned to war, and he had to return. For a while they did nothing, hoping against hope that the Doctor would return, that he would perhaps whisk them away somewhere where they could remain happy together for the rest of their days. They had been foolish, and she realised now that it had been greater folly than what she had planned with Akhen. Soon they could wait no longer, and John convinced her to return with him to England. In their year together, she had picked up quite a lot of his mannerisms and he had educated her about his culture very thoroughly, so she was not wholly unprepared for this entry into 'civilisation'.

The trouble had begun almost the very moment they stepped on English soil. They had been so worried about how she would comport herself that they had completely overlooked getting her an identity. When asked for her name, she could only look at her interrogator mutely. "Nef..." she began, hesitating, when John broke in with a nervous smile, "Neffy. This is Neffy."

The official had peered at her trousered form suspiciously. "What sort of name is that?"

"It's a perfectly respectable name, my good man!" John was surprisingly good at bluffing his way through things. "Haven't you heard of the Neffys of Kent?" The official seemed only partly convinced, but said nonetheless, "I'll need a first name, too."

She had answered before John, because she knew what name she wanted. If she couldn't keep her own, the only fitting name she could assume was that of another Queen, one she thought highly of.

"Amelia," she'd said. "My name is Amelia Neffy."

Somehow, their bluff had worked. "Welcome to London, Amelia Neffy," John had grinned at her later, when they had finally made it to the city. They had kissed under the stars and the lights of the giant clock that she inexplicably grew to love.

For some time after that she hadn't really thought about the repercussions of settling down in a strange land nearly two thousand years in the future. They had been busy running from mill to post trying desperately to find a way in which she could remain in England without exciting too much attention. In the end, they finally found some helpful individuals in the wilds of Scotland , though their sentiments were distinctly anti-Doctor for some reason. She and John disclosed little to nothing about the Doctor and his friends and managed to get her a new identity, one that she was still rather proud of.

She was Amelia Neffy, daughter of British emigrant Arthur Neffy and his wife Aida. She had studied Egyptology under her father at the British School of Archaeology at Jerusalem and had extensive knowledge of ancient Egypt from going on tours with her family. It was surprising how easily this story worked. No one seemed to doubt it, not after she proved without any doubt that she really did know a lot about ancient Egypt.

War had ended before John could be sent out, but then their own little battles began. The more she dabbled in 'ancient' Egypt, the more her despair grew. It was her family, her culture, her people that were being speculated about. Downfalls of whole dynasties and deaths of various kings were discussed with callous enthusiasm. The final straw had been an invitation to join the Egypt Exploration Fund. Their selling point had been their greatest discovery yet –a beautiful life-like bust of an elusive Egyptian queen. She had declined them as graciously as she could and had burst into raving tears in John's presence. He had made her withdraw from society then, especially from the society of other Egyptologists.

Not soon after that John had discovered her tisane and reacted so strongly she still felt surprised sometimes. The fight had been long, hurtful and tiring. The fact that she had been drinking her tisane ever since she had stayed back in his tent seemed to make him unreasonably livid. Names were called; curses were thrown. He packed his bags and left and she didn't stop him.

She didn't see him again until forty years later, old and feeble in a drab but bright white room. The reunion had been painful; both of them hadn't shed a single tear during their meeting but she still cried herself to sleep sometimes.

"We were so worried you'd end up here," he'd wheezed, "I never thought I would be paving the way here myself."

She had called him an old fool, and he'd chuckled and said better an old fool than a young one.

"We _were_ fools, weren't we?" They'd laughed, quite humourlessly, and had agreed. Yes, they'd been fools of the first order.

"Amelia Neffy," he'd murmured speculatively. "You're damned beautiful, you know. Even with all those wrinkles you still look like that blasted bust of yours."

She'd thanked him demurely and said that Thutmose had been a fine Artist.

"D'you still remember everything?" His old, mad eyes were filled with a frank wonder so familiar it had made her heart ache.

"Everything," she'd admitted.

She still remembered everything. Sometimes this life, London, the streets and the cars felt like a dream, and the bright, sandy lanes of Amarna that she visited at night seemed more real than anything else. Even now, sometimes, she mistook her Ophelia for Meri and addressed her so. When she was confused, she told her that she resembled her grandmother, and that seemed to make her rather pleased.

He'd asked her about her life after him, and she told him. She told him about Robert –daring, dashing young Rob, with his plane and his girls. If she were being honest with herself, she had married Robert because his whole demeanour had been so like John's. There the similarity had ended –Robert had been cold and selfish, an unyielding, misunderstanding man in private.

She didn't tell John all this. She told him what he wanted to hear. "I didn't take the tisane again. I bore him his child."

His old, frail face had contorted –whether with satisfaction, jealousy or sadness, she couldn't tell. "What was his name?"

There it was. She was sure to anger him again. "It was a girl. I never named her. I gave her away."

His rage this time had been almost equal to before, but on his wrinkled face, in his little white bed, it looked a little pathetic. She told him so.

"You're a cruel bitch, Neffy."

"Watch your tongue, Riddell. You speak before a Queen."

"A bloody Queen, and literally. Elizabeth of Bathory has nothing compared to you." She'd had decades to immerse herself in modern literature. She knew who Elizabeth Bathory was. She scolded him back, calling him Vlad the Harsh, the Unreasonable.

"You're not with him anymore, are you?"

No. She'd divorced him. His response was easily predictable.

"I don't wonder."

"_I_ divorced him, so he could run after as many red-haired whores as he pleased, with absolute freedom."

A sudden smile had spread on his face. "Still can't believe he would prefer someone else over _you_, eh? You've always been so bloody vain about your looks."

"You did say I'm beautiful."

"Yes I did, and there's really no point in denying such an obvious fact, is there? Modesty is pointless with you."

"You never seemed to mind."

"No, I didn't. You had every right to be as cocksure as you were. It was one of the things I lo-" He'd stopped abruptly. There they were, old and infirm, and suddenly they'd felt as unsure as young teenagers. So she had desperately continued in the previous vein of discussion instead, painful as it was.

"I gave her away because she reminded me of Setep."

No one else knew about her other children, the ones long dead and gone, embalmed and entombed in graves that were now prime sites of archaeological studies. She'd told him about her six babies, and how they had withered away, one by one, before the Doctor came and eradicated the plague that had taken them away. Only he knew why she had decided to stay back –that after burying her third and most loved daughter, she had suddenly wanted no more of that trapped, dusty, diseased life.

Six babies she'd had – Meri, Meke, Ankhe, Tashe, Nefe, and Setep. She buried three of her girls before she could escape, and she had begun her new life with a vow to never let herself experience that kind of heartache again. She'd told John as much, but he hadn't understood, and after he'd left, she'd ended up experiencing a different kind of pain, but heartache all the same.

But in that white bed, he finally seemed to understand. "Setep was-"

"-my youngest. The baby, the runt of the lot. Of course she was the first to go. Nefer was next. She had loved animals, and we buried her favourite gazelle next to her. And then it was –Meke."

"We gave her…" She had searched for the term. "You would call it a… State Funeral. We had high hopes of Meke. We thought she would marry her brother and rule Egypt by his side after our time." She had not spoken of this, like this, for decades. John was the only one she could speak to in such a manner. "Then I could bear it no longer, and I left. I… found you and I never went back."

Her words had brought tears in John's rheumy eyes. "Neffy," he had taken her hand in his. Hers was smooth and soft even with all the wrinkles, but his skin was rough and papery. "I have missed you."

"As have I you."

"I'm glad. I wondered… if you ever thought of me."

"You think me so callous?" She had withdrawn her hand.

"Neffy," his voice had been imploring. "You know I loved you. I would have married you."

"But you didn't."

"But I didn't."

"Well, here we are."

He'd taken a deep breath. "I'm sorry I abandoned you. I'm sorry you had to go tie yourself to a lying bastard like that Robert of yours."

"Oh, don't take all the credit," she'd said sardonically. Even now, his 'chivalrous' nature only irked her independent spirit. As Akhen had irked her a lifetime before, as Ophelia did now. "I managed quite well by myself, and you had nothing to do with my marrying Rob." His indignant look had softened her own ire and she had laughed. "It wasn't all bad. I met Max soon after that."

"Max?"

"Maxwell Clark. He was an inventor. He was kind and generous, and he was a recluse, so I could live in anonymity, the way I'd always wanted."

"Did you love him?" She had almost called him out on his jealousy, but she hadn't.

"Perhaps I did. I certainly was extremely fond of him."

"You were happy, then."

"Yes." She'd glanced at him. "I bore him a child, too. Ophelia."

"You kept her?" He seemed surprised and pleased at the same time.

"She's waiting outside."

He had insisted on meeting her, and finally she had agreed. Ophelia was almost the same age she had been when she'd first met John. She'd known he was looking for similarities, and she also knew he hadn't found any. Ophelia looked nothing like her mother but took after Tiye, her long-dead grandmother. Small wonder she often mistook her for Meri, who had always taken after _her_ father, Akhen, son of Tiye.

The meeting had ended soon after that. She had promised to visit again, and she had, bearing flowers. They turned out to be apt for the occasion, for he had already fallen into the deep sleep that he would never wake from.

John Riddell, famous explorer and war hero, died in a little-known sanatorium, still convinced to the end that he had taken Queen Nefertiti as his lover and had hunted dinosaurs on a spaceship. The nurses had shaken their heads and said that he had been a lovely man, really, if only he hadn't been so delusional.

And now the sun was setting on his grave, sending splashes of beautiful warm colours across the marble headstone she had paid for. The colours reminded her of a sunset she had once witnessed in Amarna, with Meke on her lap while she taught her all the colours.

She took a deep breath and shivered. She was too old. Ophelia wrapped a shawl across her shoulders, and she shooed her away. Ophelia obeyed, recognising her mother's need for some privacy at her old lover's grave. But she wasn't left alone for too long.

"He was a good man." The voice was too familiar, even though she hadn't heard anything like it in nearly five decades.

"Doctor."

"Neffy. Looking good." She shot him a venomous glare. "Well, better than you ought to at this age, at any rate."

"What do you want?"

"I came to see an old friend."

"You're too late. Go back a year or two and you'll catch him."

"I came to see you."

She looked at him. "What do you want?" She repeated.

"Are you happy?"

"What?"

"You heard me."

"What sort of question is that?"

He simply looked at her.

She turned back to John's grave. She thought of everything she been through, everything she had experienced. She thought of Akhen, of his vision and passing fondness and utmost respect for her(for which she always respected him). She thought of her six long-lost, almost-forgotten girls. She thought of the several other daughters and sons she did not allow to grow in her womb. She thought of Robert, their wild, crazy nights together, and the bruises he gave her. She thought of his daughter –and hers –her Rita-Anne, growing beautiful and happy with a couple called Smith(of course she had sought her out). She thought of Max, dear Max with his glasses and his calm voice and his gentle touch and his adoration, Max who rested in a grave two rows away. Ophelia, who stood at the car watching her mother as she always had –the daughter taking care of the mother in a strange reversal of roles. Last of all, she thought of John, John with his laughing eyes and his stuck-up grin, his loud words and his heavy innuendos, his rough hands and his warm embrace.

Then she looked at the setting sun, its slanting rays showing stark against the clouds in the sky. Aten was watching over her as He always had, and He would guide John into the afterlife, as He would when it was her turn.

She turned back to the Doctor, and smiled a sad, heavy smile. "Yes."

His smile was a mirror of her own. "That's all I needed to hear. Goodbye, Neffy."

He walked away to where the Tardis was parked behind a tree.

"Oh Doctor?"

He paused and turned back, inquiringly.

"I like the new body."

He laughed. "So do I. Although I'm not so sure of the new kidneys." With which he slammed the doors behind him.

She was still sniggering when Ophelia returned dutifully to her side. "What's so funny?"

"I think we should have kidneys for dinner tonight."

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**A/N: Oh-kay, lots of random stuff I researched for this piece, mostly about Nefertiti, of course.**

**= Nefertiti had several names, or titles. I've mentioned two or three here. One of them is 'Lady of the Two Lands' which by 'two lands' is supposed to mean Upper and Lower Egypt, but don't you see how apt it is for this story?**

**= She _did_ have six daughters, the third of which went on to marry her half-brother(Neffy's half-son) Tutankhamen and rule as his queen. Yeah, _that_ King Tut. I've shortened all their names from their actual, official ones to give it a more personal touch. I have no idea if this was generally done in ancient Egypt, or if the Egyptians had their own separate nicknames for the kids, names that weren't written down anywhere. The latter idea makes more sense, but since I have almost zilch knowledge about the ancient Egyptian language, I thought I'd stick to the first method.**

**= Nefertiti disappeared suddenly from official scriptures and writing somewhere in her thirties. She is believed to have died at this point, possibly from a plague, since three of her kids had also died. The two youngest were assumed dead because even they weren't being mentioned any more, but the death of Meketaten, her second daughter, is 100% certain because there is record of her funeral and of Nefertiti mourning her. This made me weave in the fact that Meke was her favourite daughter, which is why there was all the pomp and ceremony. **

**Meke is also thought to have died giving birth, but since that would have complicated her backstory even more, I chose to not mention it. The father of her child is disputed, and many think it may have been her own father, Nefertiti's husband. Before you're grossed out, remember that it was quite common for ancient Egyptian fathers to marry their daughters, at least in the Royal families. Since I don't completely want to ignore that fact, Neffy doesn't really mention how Meke died. It is for you to make the assumption. **

**Also, in the episode, Neffy mentions the Doctor saved her city from alien locusts, which could have been the harbingers of the plague which is supposed to have killed her children(and her) in real life.**

**= The cult of Aten was a short-lived religious upheaval in ancient Egypt. From what I've understood of it, Nefertiti's husband, the Pharaoh Amenhotep IV declared that there was only one great God of all the Gods in their pantheon that he would worship -an embodiment of the Sun God Ra, the God Aten. He renamed himself as Akhenaten("Beloved of the Aten", or something like that) and moved the capital from Thebes to Amarna. Nefertiti was actively involved in helping make this change. They weren't fanatical about it either, and let the people shift their tendencies gradually, since there seems to be proof of many subjects still continuing the worship of the old Gods. Unfortunately, the lifespan of ancient Egyptian people wasn't much(I've taken great liberties with Neffy's age) and they died before their new religion could take a firm hold. Tut himself moved the capital back to Thebes and his successor completely abolished the religion of Aten.**

**= The bust of Nefertiti is possibly the world's most famous piece of Egyptian art next to King Tut's mask. Google it, seriously, it's beautiful. It was discovered by a German archaeological team and it currently resides in a museum in Berlin. Apparently the Egyptian government once asked Hitler to return the bust to her home country and Hitler declared that he would rather build a whole Egyptian museum where "...this wonder, Nefertiti, will be enthroned ... I will never relinquish the head of the Queen" (quote from the Wikipedia article on her bust). So yeah, it was a pretty big deal. I can imagine Neffy sitting in her comfortable room, listening to this on the radio and sniggering. There is still some debate between Egypt and Germany about this, apparently.**

**= The war John is supposed to join is the First World War. I mention in the end that he is a decorated war hero since there was another war soon after that -the Second World War. I think this war changed Riddell considerably and he returned a broken, nervous man. Soon, his stories of ancient Egyptian queens and dinosaurs caught the attention of the wrong kind of people and that he was committed to a Sanatorium with other similar victims of the war.**

**= Rita-Anne Smith is a somewhat important character... or important to an important character... virtual cookies to those who can guess who she is!**

**Whew, I think that'll do! My little note seems to be as big as the story itself! You aren't obliged to read it, of course, but if you did, good for you!**

**Thank you for taking the time to read this! Please review!**


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